Abbas makes punishment for honor killings identical to other forms of murder

Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida
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Feb. 23, 2015

Op-ed by attorney Dr. Ihab Amr of the PA Justice Ministry
“In order to diminish the number of murders for motives of honor, his Excellency the President [Mahmoud Abbas] published a resolution on May 11, 2014 to amend Article 98 of Penal Law 16 of 1960, which is in force in the West Bank… abolishing the pretext (i.e., mitigating circumstance) that reduces the penalty for femicide for so-called ‘motives of honor’ – a pretext used regularly [by defendants] in the past before the above-mentioned abolition. The amendment classifies murders for motives of honor as identical to any other [form of] murder in terms of the penalty. The decree to institute the amendment of the law reads as follows: ‘The mitigating circumstance shall apply to a person who has committed a crime in a state of rage resulting from an act of injustice committed by the victim against the perpetrator, posing a threat to the latter. The mitigating circumstance shall not apply in the event that the act was committed against a woman on the pretext of honor.’”